AAPL en fuego

quote:Originally posted by wco81:Well so much for the theory that the computer business has no effect on APPL price.

Enthusiast disappointment with the specs of a new piece of hardware is totally different from investor disappointment with a whole product line being out of commission for a quarter. Even still, the reality is the stock has hardly been effected. I'd have expected a much stronger pullback toward 25 on that news, and maybe that'll happen over a longer period and I'll get my buying opp, but just as possible is a retracement to test 34 again. In any case a pullback from new highs at 34 back to 31 is nothing but a blip, not even a spike. It looks to me like the investment community remains quite bullish for AAPL to recover against a downmarket trend in the NAZ. Apparently I'm not the only one looking for an AAPL buying opp. Except for Friday's open which later rallied, AAPL's been tracking the Naz pretty closely day to day, which is what it usually does.

quote:Originally posted by ruddy:Looks to me like the usual "buy the rumor" kind of runup before "selling the news," in this case the HP iPod debut tomorrow and the iMac3 debut next week.

I really don't think the hPod will take away from iPod sales. the people who want an iPod want' just that, an iPod, not an hPod. I do think the hPod will be a successful product though for HP as it will still be better than almost every other mp3 player on the market today.

quote:Originally posted by ruddy:Looks to me like the usual "buy the rumor" kind of runup before "selling the news," in this case the HP iPod debut tomorrow and the iMac3 debut next week.

It's been the case the past few times that "selling the news" caused a drop, but not as big a change as from "buying the rumor", yielding an overall higher price than before the pre/post-announcement trading.

Either way, I bought in at $20.90 so unless the new iMac has a 700MHz G3, I'm not too worried.

quote:Originally posted by ruddy:Looks to me like the usual "buy the rumor" kind of runup before "selling the news," in this case the HP iPod debut tomorrow and the iMac3 debut next week.

It's been the case the past few times that "selling the news" caused a drop, but not as big a change as from "buying the rumor", yielding an overall higher price than before the pre/post-announcement trading.

Barring major bad news, I agree that longterm AAPL looks to continue rising, with the usual ups and downs.

quote:"As the iPod installed base grows and the overall demand for digitally distributed content increases, we expect the Street to begin to view iTunes as more than just the cog in a wheel that drives hardware sales,"

And they've got it right. Long term iTMS will be a very profitable volume business. It gets more profitable as the business model continues to scale out and downloads expand, the catalog expands, the geography expands, and iTunes moves into the cell phone space.

quote:Shares of Hewlett-Packard (NYSE:HPQ - News) edged up 0.4 percent in afternoon trading as the computer hardware maker announced a new push into consumer electronics that includes digital televisions, printers and the long-awaited debut of its version of Apple's iPod music player.

Apple shares (NasdaqNM:AAPL - News) fell 1.2 percent on the threat from H-P to its dominant position in the market for digital music players

Another 3 year high today on decent volume, even after a couple of down days for the Naz.

Re: shorting: historically September is a bear of a month for the stock markets. And the anti-Apple FUD machines are operating full tilt with baloney like "the biggest lawsuit settlement in history (Beatles)," "imminent iPod failure against the new 'real' competition (MSN, Yahoo, etc)," "Apple repeating the same old mistakes," and the loud predictions of shorts on various stock boards that Apple is about to warn.

quote:Originally posted by ruddy:Another 3 year high today on decent volume, even after a couple of down days for the Naz.

Re: shorting: historically September is a bear of a month for the stock markets. And the anti-Apple FUD machines are operating full tilt with baloney like "the biggest lawsuit settlement in history (Beatles)," "imminent iPod failure against the new 'real' competition (MSN, Yahoo, etc)," "Apple repeating the same old mistakes," and the loud predictions of shorts on various stock boards that Apple is about to warn.

If Apple is back to its old patterns, it will make some nice moves into the holiday season. Which should be huge for them: iPod, iPod Mini, iMac, iBook, eMac should all be huge hits in addition to the growing popularity of the Xserve and PowerMac, especially the PM with software like Motion driving sales.

quote:Re: shorting: historically September is a bear of a month for the stock markets. And the anti-Apple FUD machines are operating full tilt with baloney like "the biggest lawsuit settlement in history (Beatles)," "imminent iPod failure against the new 'real' competition (MSN, Yahoo, etc)," "Apple repeating the same old mistakes," and the loud predictions of shorts on various stock boards that Apple is about to warn.

a little word on stock boards. they represent a tiny portion of market volumes. since stocks go up and they go down depending on if there is an imbalance of buyers and sellers, it follows that no one should listen to retail investors because....

they don't think like the portfolio managers at Fido et al that really move markets.

Sold some at $38. Shooting for $48 for the next batch. However, at current prices, it's already 42 times next year's earnings. Some analysts have said business prospects are good but valuation may have gotten ahead of itself. Wonder what the shorting activity is.

BTW, one of these market research firms said recently that the digital player market will be $4 billion this year. That includes flash and CD-players which play back CD-ROMs with MP3 files on them.

By 2008, this market may grow to $50 billion (I think that was the figure). Sounds incredible, whether or not iPod can maintain or increase it's market share in 4-5 years. Kind of like those forecasts about money to be made on the Internet by those dot com companies, a lot of which are no longer around.

The other thing is this lawsuit with Apple Corp, the Beatles company. One possible outcome may be to spin out the iTunes/iPod business from APPL. What would that do to the stock? Should APPL shareholders get shares in the new company?

I wouldn't be surprised to see AAPL break into the 40s on a run up to earnings, which will likely beat the street as guidance looked conservative. Then some "sell on news" activity, meaning a small correction. Lots of shorts have already been squeezed hard as many were expecting Apple to warn, or iMac to not ship on time, or SJ to die . . .

Merrill Lynch did a 180 on their AAPL guidance today. Citing an underestimated iPod and iMac market and the halo effect. Even the naysayers are seeing the riting on the wall. Raised their targets to 44 and this coming earnings to 19 cents a share.

quote:Originally posted by smalakar:has anybody made some sort of chart showing the stock price over the years ... and pointed out product releases along the way? i thought that would be something interesting to look at...

The only correlations to releases of new Macs I've seen in 7 years of trading AAPL was the impending launch of iBook, and the surprise launch of the G4 PowerMac, both of which correlated to strong runs on the stock, though others will (rightly) claim that correlation doesn't _necessarily_ imply cause and effect. Here's a split-adjusted chart for AAPL over the years.

MacNN has links to a couple of interesting articles at fool.com. Might want to check them out.

I thought the pro-Apple guy made some interesting points about Apple's P/E & other financial measures, while the anti-Apple guy made some silly comments about an ad campaign Apple no longer runs as well as his inability to get a Mac to work with his printers. Sounds a bit like the BF.

quote:Originally posted by smalakar:has anybody made some sort of chart showing the stock price over the years ... and pointed out product releases along the way? i thought that would be something interesting to look at...

One thing I have noticed is that the trend line on AAPL snapped up sharply about the time the iTMS opened, and it's been climbing (w/ no significant variation) ever since - as you can see on the chart in ruddy's link.

quote:Originally posted by zatoichi:One thing I have noticed is that the trend line on AAPL snapped up sharply about the time the iTMS opened, and it's been climbing (w/ no significant variation) ever since

If I had had extra money at the time, I would have bought in the low 20s... and sold at 30. I wouldn't have thought in a million years it would hit 40 so soon. And I think at 40 it's way overvalued. There is no way I'd touch that stock now (unless I was a flipper, and got it only to sell when it hit 43 or something). When everyone and their dog starts talking about a stock, it's time to get out.

After clothes, money and a car, an iPod is what U.S. teenagers want most this holiday season.

A survey of 600 high school students by Piper Jaffray & Co. analyst Gene Munster found Apple Computer Inc.'s digital player No. 4 on their wish list. And the iPod wasn't even among the items Munster suggested -- the kids wrote it in.

``It was really surprising,'' said Munster in an interview from his office in Minneapolis. ``They didn't say music player. They said iPod. Teens want to be cool, they want their music, and the iPod is a cool way for them to get their music.''

quote:Originally posted by Eug Wanker:I wouldn't have thought in a million years it would hit 40 so soon. And I think at 40 it's way overvalued.

Not suggesting anyone should buy in here (I'm not'”still selling my 17s), but if the analyst estimates for 1.9 Million iPods this quarter (more than doubling last Q) and 2.7 million for next quarter are anywhere close to coming true, _and especially_ if there's a lesser but still significant growth in Mac sales (i.e. Halo Effect), then I suspect after a bit of "sell on news" action AAPL could soon be trading in the mid-40s as the market says to hell with valuation and instead continues to focus on the growth story.

iPod marketshare 82% as of August

quote: The iPod had an 82 percent share of the market in U.S. retail stores in the 12 months ended in August, up from 64 percent in the same period a year earlier, and 33 percent two years ago, according to Port Washington, New York-based NPD Group Inc.